At that time, the wounded 5th Battalion soldiers were carefully bandaged and lying in wait. When saying goodbye to the victors, some Algerian soldiers suddenly shouted: “Long live Ho Chi Minh! Thank you!”. Vietnam stepped up propaganda activities at the Ban Keo base. Leaflets were distributed throughout the station by the agents. The loudspeakers persistently called on those who had gone astray to return to their villages, not to follow the enemy, not to use guns to kill their compatriots and to clearly state the leniency and righteous policy of the Party and Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
From the defeat at Him Lam and Doc Lap, France recognised the difficult-to-overcome weaknesses of the “Dien Bien Phu hedgehog”, and quickly compensated for losses in people and weapons. On March 16, 1954, Cogny sent another parachute battalion to reinforce Muong Thanh. This was the 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion (6è BPC) commanded by Bigeard. The arrival of the 6th Parachute Battalion brought high morale to the garrison; at the same time, Navarre instructed General Gambier, Chief of the General Staff of the French Expeditionary Force, to urgently carry out a plan to cause artificial rain on the road from the Vietnamese rear to the Dien Bien Phu Front to prevent supplies.
On March 16, 1954, on the Vietnamese side, the Dien Bien Phu Front Command convened a campaign staff conference to summarise Phase 1 and assign tasks for Phase 2 of the campaign. Meanwhile, on the coordinated battlefield of the Northern Delta, guerrillas and local soldiers coordinated to mine a French colonial military train in Van Lam (Hung Yen).
